


Any Way You Slice It

by thestarryknight



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Frottage, Getting Together, Injury, M/M, Many Uses of Oranges, Motorcycle Sex, POV First Person, POV Sirius Black, Sirius Black's Flying Motorbike, Unsafe driving, blowjob
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-06
Updated: 2021-01-06
Packaged: 2021-03-10 20:42:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,303
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28413333
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thestarryknight/pseuds/thestarryknight
Summary: ( I. ) It’s 1975 and we’re at the beach with the boys and the sun is bright and the waves are rolling and Remus loves oranges. ( II. ) We’re at the cusp of war and I can feel it in my bones and in the empty room beside mine. Remus is missing and our flatshare feels so quiet and all I know how to do is keep the fire going.  ( III. ) Does this count as running, as hiding, or lying to ourselves? And do I care? Because there’s oranges and motorcycle rides and roaming hands and I’d like to forget.
Relationships: Sirius Black/Remus Lupin
Comments: 11
Kudos: 27





	Any Way You Slice It

**Author's Note:**

  * For [onbeinganangel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/onbeinganangel/gifts).



> this fic is for the incredible onbeinganangel's birthday today! it's been so special to get to know you over the past couple of months and so in thanks for your lovely friendship, your kindness, and the joy you've brought me, i've made this fic for you. happiest of birthdays, and may your next year bring you so many good things <3 
> 
> thank you to [crazybutgood](https://archiveofourown.org/users/crazybutgood) for the beta on this! 
> 
> this fic comes in three parts. the first and last are happy ones, and the second contains descriptions of injury (with references to blood). the circumstances of the attack are not described in detail. if you need to skip it, just avoid 'II' (section 2). 
> 
> this fic was inspired by several of Marion's favorite things, as well as [this piece of motorcycle!wolfstar fanart](https://matuk-art.tumblr.com/post/636206091413471232/moonys-obsession) and [this post about oranges and the ocean.](https://onbeinganangel.tumblr.com/post/638290845285695489) There's a blink-and-you'll-miss-it reference to one of my favorite fics by Marion -- check out [Inevitable (From the Very Start)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26894185) here and let me know if you catch the ref.

**1975 - still waters**

Remus was eating an orange. That was an understatement. Remus, in a tight grey t-shirt and shorts, sat beneath one of the wide birch trees at the edge of the sand, scraggly knees against the scraggly roots -- the most undressed I’ve ever seen him. He was eating an orange, teeth sinking into the soft, fleshy segments, one at time, plucking them from the decimated peel in his hand as if he hadn’t even noticed it there. He wore big sunglasses, tortoiseshell and too wide for his thin face, and they were riding low on his nose, slipping down with the sweat from the summer sun.

I watched him as he bit another piece of orange and I swear my whole heart followed the steady drip of juice down from the corner of his lips onto those ridiculous khaki shorts. He was going to be sticky with it, I was sure, and I doubted he’d run into the water like me and James. And Peter. Can’t forget about Peter, all pale skin head to toe, running into the water right after us.

James dumped water on me while I was distracted, and I turned and _had_ to tackle him under the waves. It was summer then, and beautiful, and we were young and stupid and gorgeous. James caught me with an arm to the ribcage, knocking me full-on back into the seawater, and I swallowed about half a gallon, spluttering. I came up with my fists raised, ready to go after him, but he had already dove further out into the waves. Had I been a braver version of myself, I might have left him then and gone to join Remus.

But I was reckless and young, then. I dove after James, wrapping an _Incarcerous_ right round his foot and dragging him back, dunking him under. He had ridiculous curly hair, overgrown and in dire need of a haircut. It always looked that way, profoundly long, even after he tried to trim it to woo Lily or when Minnie McG gave him a good shouting. It always sprang back, even longer and more scruffy than before. And the seawater did his hair no favors, sending it into a soggy mess.

We tussled in the waves, James shoving me under and me doing the same right back. Peter tried to participate (and bless him if he wasn’t always _trying to participate_ ), swimming full force at us. But a good wave caught him in the chest and nearly pantsed him right then and there and that was enough to distract me and Prongs from our tussle and rag on him instead.

James and I went after him, teaming up (we made such a good team, those days). James went under the water, I went straight at him, and Peter didn’t know where to turn, and then he was as soaked as we were, down to the very bone, dripping like a wet cat and with an expression like one too. It was hilarious, and James and I told him so (he didn’t much like that).

When we had wrestled ourselves silly, and we were dripping with the golden sun and saltwater from head to toe— James’ stupid hair was slicked back and Peter’s was a Mohawk, and mine, well. Mine was shaggy in all the right ways of course, tangled but I’m sure it looked _on purpose_ — we headed back to the shore. There was a little pile of our things under a ward charm. It was keyed up to James, and disintegrated when he touched it, but Re wasn’t anywhere in sight.

He did that, sometimes. Wandered off. He’d always come right on back soon enough looking a little softer. He needed quiet, he’d say. Even if wherever he had been at first was somewhere like a library.

It wasn’t long this time. James and Peter and I had toweled off, not thinking too much of it. There wasn’t anybody around, so I switched into the Dog and shook my wet fur off at the two of them and then we had another wrestle, this time in the sand (I got sand in all the worst places, let me tell you, was still finding it in my trousers a week later, but by then it was a sweet reminder). By the time we’d all gotten dry and Peter had sent a charm through his hair to make it all soft and fluffed up (James gave him shit for it, don’t worry), Re came wandering back, ice creams in one hand and another orange in the other.

He knew us so well, I would swear he had a little notebook somewhere to keep track. Mint chip for James, butterscotch for Peter, and chocolate for me. Re never had too much of a sweet tooth, and it never made sense back then, about the chocolate. I know now what I didn’t then, that he kept a bar of fancy Lindt chocolate around for _me_ and not for him. I get _heavy_ sometimes, in my head. We all know that. Remus knew that. So did James, but I don’t think I realized that he knew it until it was too late. Re always said it was better to be sad with chocolate than to be sad without.

I had my chocolate cone, and you know what? Sweet things taste so much better in the setting sun, skin pink and fresh from the water. I know now that I thought Remus was so attractive then, all long and lean with sun-speckled skin, but at the time I thought it was just a brotherly affection I felt for him. Stupid me. He’s possibly the most beautiful man I know, and I knew that then, just _subconsciously_ was all.

As the sun set over the beach, and Remus sat back with his dusty brown hair, peeling another orange, the juices trickling down over his fingers. There were freckles over his cheeks that looked like someone had sprinkled him with his very own dusting of zest, I would have sworn that was the happiest we’d ever be. And it was really pretty happy, to be honest. He held the orange delicately, taking segment after segment and pressing them against his lips like they were a gift from the gods.

And maybe it _was_ a gift, watching him eating the orange on the beach in the sunset. Maybe I soaked up all the good years before I even knew what I had. Maybe we all only get a certain allotment and I used mine up on oranges and freckles and the beach, because that summer -- that was the last really peaceful one. It all got so much harder after that.

**1979 - tide receding**

It was about a year into Dumbledore’s so-called war (though we didn’t really see it, yet) when Remus disappeared for a week. He’d done it once or twice before, but always left a note. Left some kind of signal for me. A sprig of lavender on my pillow, a twist of a knot in my housecoat tie. One time, he left all the mugs upside down in the kitchen before he left. Just so I’d know. He left of his own accord and would be back soon.

Except this time was different. This time, the mugs were all the right way up, and my housecoat was still draped over the edge of the couch, and there was no lavender in sight. Even as the Dog form, I couldn’t find his scent. Like he’d Apparated away, only the soft acridic scent of the spellwork still hung in the air. And in that little flat in that stupid back alley of SoHo, the emptiness felt so goddamn big. Like the walls had grown a meter higher and the floors could stretch on and on.

See, I think the worst part was that I got comfortable, you know? We had our rhythms. I’d go out and pick up odd jobs here and there: a messenger, a cook in a little magical bakery, a cleaner at a tattoo shop for a bit, where the owner only paid me in ink.

That little apartment? God, it was fucking tiny, one bedroom plus a pullout sofa, and I’d have to tussle with Re over which of us would sleep on it every night. It had some broken springs, and if you fell into the middle spot, you’d end up sagging right through the couch, butt not even an inch off the ground. If you weren’t careful, somebody would have to yank you out, and that godforsaken mattress right along with you. There was a little kitchenette and a spot to kick off shoes by the door and that was basically it.

The only good part about it was the little fireplace. It was an old building, and we always said it’d been someone’s parlor, once. The whole place, bedroom and kitchen and couch, all just one room in someone’s house. That wasn’t such a surprise to me, but Remus always talked about _that much space_ with reverence.

There was mold in the bathroom, ‘round the edges of the tub and where the tile met the wall, and Re -- I swear he’d scrub it up and down, armed with _Scourgify_ and Muggle bleach, but that mold was damn resilient. That whole house was damn resilient, down to the chip in the counter that refused to heal over, and the spot where the doorknob had bust into the wall which refused to take to any fixing, Muggle spackle or magical.

But it was home. And we had our rhythms there. Re would come home in the evenings after his coursework was finished, lugging probably a dozen goddamn library books in his bag (breaking his shoulder). He had a way about him, somehow both organized and neat and an utter mess. When he came home, he would always set down the books in a neat little stack right at the edge of the table, so that each of the spines were aligned and you could read right down the titles.

Except he didn’t come home that last night. No new stack of books. I waited, my shitty pasta growing cold and congealed in the pot, picking at my own plate. Something felt wrong, you know? That way that you can feel the _wrong_ all in your spine, and it’s not tangible but it’s there. I could swear right then and there that Re and I were tied right down to the very soul, and his string had been yanked, _hard_.

I thought at first maybe he was taking a while at the library. He did that sometimes, stayed late because he’d found _the perfect book_. Or that maybe Dumbledore had sent him off on some mission. He had started doing that, just as a messenger or a liaison. It started with little trips, nothing more than an hour or so. Always reasonable, then, at the start. We were his boys, his Gryffindors. So brave. If only we’d said no the first time.

I put the dinner away, thinking he’d gotten caught up or sent off or something else utterly mundane. And in a way, I was right. He had been on a mission. But when he didn’t return the next day, or the next, I started getting really worried. On the second night, I went about the place in my Animagus form, searching for him, but still couldn’t find the trail. _Maybe if I’d done it the night before_ , I thought. _Maybe if I’d planned ahead better. Maybe if I’d done this or that or something else._

I tried James’ place, and Peter’s, though I didn’t think he’d be there. And Dumbledore wasn’t answering my floo calls. Look, I started getting desperate. He hadn’t left a note. He hadn’t left a sign. I swear, I started thinking maybe I’d misunderstood something. Maybe he had flipped my toothbrush upside down and that was meant to be a sign, but I’d messed it up before I realized. Or maybe the books by the sofa were meant to imply something. Except none of it made sense.

In the four days that followed Re’s disappearance, I cleaned the entire apartment. I spoke to every single person who knew him. I nearly questioned Albus at wandpoint (only stowed the wand by sheer force of will alone and went on with the questioning). I filled the fridge, fully _filled_ it for the first time since we’d moved in, with every last one of Re’s favorite foods. As if that could draw him back home. It didn’t.

I put fresh oranges in the big bowl at the center of the table because they’re a treat that Re never gets for himself. I spent nearly every waking minute pacing the goddamned apartment waiting for him. When the silence got too loud somewhere around the third day, I started playing music on the record player he fixed up for me last Christmas.

On the fifth day, I lit a fire and sat by it, waiting for him. The oranges had started to get a little odd, a little too soft in some places, a little whitish in others. Somehow I decided that I needed to keep the fire going. For whatever reason, I had it in my head that if I put the fire out, he wouldn’t come back. That he wouldn’t know where to find me. So I kept it going.

Sometime late on the sixth day, I went out and cut down a tree and split the wood and stacked it over by the fireplace. I’d start drifting off to sleep and wake up to the embers starting to fade, and I’d toss another log in, anxiously casting in _Incendio_ to keep it alive. On the seventh day, the moon came and went with no sign of him. I split another set of logs and brought them inside, casting a drying charm as I did.

I ate the second-to-last good orange on the eighth day. I vanished the rotting ones, leaving just the last. James and Lily stopped by, did my dishes and made me take a shower.

On the tenth day, I tossed another log in the fire, sending a flurry of sparks into my face. I was spluttering, wiping ash off my face and trying to avoid getting burned when I heard the lock click. James had a key. He knocked, though. Anytime he came, he’d knock. Peter had a key too, but I had to take it back when I lost mine the first time. The only other person who had a key was Remus, and he _never_ knocked.

Before I knew it, I was vaulting over the back of the couch and racing to the door, a thrill of excitement and fear running through me as I moved. And then I saw him.

Oh, gods, I saw him.

Remus was an absolute mess. I couldn’t tell what was blood and what was mud and what was skin. I couldn’t even tell if he was _wearing_ clothes.

“Mission,” he said, voice cracking. “I’m sorry I didn’t leave a note,” he said, and I _cracked_ , rushing over to him, my hands brushing over his arms, over his shoulders. He collapsed onto me, those awful, mud-caked fingers digging into my neck, my shoulder, a caricature of the gentle touches he did when he thought I wasn’t paying attention, that I wasn’t already putting two and two together.

“You’re an idiot,” I said with love, dragging him with me up the hall, leaving a trail of dank behind us. God, it was awful. He nearly fell halfway there, stumbling into the wall and leaving an awful muddy streak in the shape of his bleeding palm. I stared at it, my mind not processing.

And then he was sat on the toilet seat, dizzy and falling half-over, listing into the sink, and I was washing him with a thick flannel and the warmest water either of us could stand. I cleaned his face first, careful around the cut in his lip, over the ridge of his eyebrow. I brushed the mud out of his newly-forming beard (Re only let it grow out when he was very, very lazy or when he couldn’t cut it -- this was a ten-day-old beard). I wiped away the dirt encrusted in the smile lines in the corners of his eyes, and those eyes, they sparkled at me. The first sign of life.

It took nearly an hour, but once I’d gotten the worst of the crust off of him and shoved him into the shower I-- well. I found myself shaking something awful, more unsteady than he was. I didn’t want to go far, keeping my ear to the door at every squeak and splash, so anxious that I’d hear the sound of him collapsing. I put together some tea, trying to steady my hands to keep from smacking the ceramic mugs together and only barely succeeded.

He stepped out in tattered sweats and a baggy t-shirt, looking worse for wear, but at least he was clean. There were more bruises than clear skin and he was cut up in about a dozen places. I summoned the medikit from the bathroom and sat him on the couch with the cuppa. He didn’t move and I knelt between his knees, pressing alcohol and dittany over each of those awful wounds. It was like the old days for a moment or two, before we started running with him during the full moon nights, but so much worse.

It was worse because it was silent. Just the _drip-drip_ of the sink as I rinsed the flannel and kept at him. The soft sounds of our breathing. I know we are the same age. But I swear he looked so old, drooping right there over the chair like it was only will alone holding him up and _that_ had long since faded.

It was worse because these weren’t the kinds of wounds he gave himself during the turn. They were in all the wrong places, too difficult for his hands to reach, though still as violent and animal. I cleaned and put dittany and wrapped him up until he was more gauze than skin.

“You’re going to be okay,” I whispered, unsure if I was convincing him or myself. “What happened?”

He didn’t answer, though his eyes flicked downwards. The way they do when he’s ashamed. Or hiding something. I pressed my thumb over a scratch on his chin, brushing a healing potion into the cut, the last of his wounds to treat.

“... Water?” he rasped, sounding like he had been breathing smoke for days. He coughed, leaning away from me, and I could see that it hurt him. “Could I have some water?” he said again, equally as sore.

I summoned a glass without thinking and heard it shatter in the kitchen with a wince. “I’ll be--” I started, and dashed from the room. My mind was reeling, tracing over his wounds. Trying to reconstruct what it was that could have made them. Trying to calculate how unwell he was. Trying to guess what I could do. But I’ve never been a good planner. That’s always James or Re, telling me what I ought to do. I am very good at following directions, but I’m not meant to be the _fixer_.

The glass had smashed before it even left the cabinet and I cursed myself, vanishing the evidence as I pulled another, and filled it with a quick _Aguamenti_. I leaned over the kitchen table, smooth wood under my hands as I tried to catch my breath and school my face before I walked back into that bathroom. Back into the battleground. The last orange in the bowl on the table caught my eye and I snagged it.

Across the room, the fire that I had stoked just before the door clicked open had fallen to ashes, still and cold, and I shivered in commiseration. It had burned for days and days. But the house was cold now, with the truth of Remus’ disappearance. War was coming. There was no escaping that, not when the sopping flannel was in my wastebin. Maybe it had already arrived by then. I don’t much know the difference.

I put on my totally-not-panicking face and took a deep breath. I went into the bathroom and found him, well, basically exactly as I’d left him. That same lost look in his eyes, him listing slightly. I pressed the glass into his hand and he drank it all down at once, rubbing his hand over his mouth blindly when he finished.

He took the orange. His hands were shaking too badly, though. I remember that. The way his hands were trying so hard to be still. I took the orange back from him, and peeled it with surer hands than his (though mine shook too). We split it. I passed him one segment at a time, and he pressed them into his mouth mechanically as if he could not taste their late summer sweetness.

Somewhere, perhaps halfway through the orange, he began to tell me the story. Visiting the eastern werewolf clans. Collecting allies for Dumbledore. What was meant to be a short mission stretched on for those ten awful days, made only worse by the presence of the moon. Rogue packs didn’t take kindly to a strange wolf in their midst, and certainly not one who smelled like _society_.

But he was _home_ at least. And he was alive. And his wounds would heal. And the war would go on with or without our agreement. We each ate another slice of orange.

**1981 - the eye**

We were flying down the A39 out towards Windsor, wind running through my hair, my hands on the bike’s handlebars and Re’s around my waist. It was early summer, what I’d later call the quiet months. Before Harry’s first birthday, sometime in June. It was the eye of the storm. But we won’t get into the storm, not today. At that time, Re and I were about three months into fucking each other blind.

I’d finally yanked my head out of my ass and started thinking maybe, just _maybe_ , those long looks and lingering hands actually meant something. It had started slow, the realizing bit. I caught his eyes for just a little too long, and then. Well. I was planning to sit on it. Pine away for him and his big eyes and soft Sirius-specific smile. But then Dorcas Meadowes died. And waiting seemed just so stupid.

Lily told me I ought to be all sweet about it, invite him to dinner. And to be fair, I did plan to do that. Except then I got there in front of him and he had those big tawny eyes that looked _so_ nervous and I totally fumbled it.

“Would you want to grab food from The Turtle and the Hare with me?” I said, completely smooth. He didn’t notice that I’d done my hair all _fancy_ like Peter does.

“Uh, sure,” he said, not looking up from his book. “In an hour or so?”

I leaned forward, putting my finger in the spine of his book and pushing it down. He looked up at me with a fight in his eyes, pulling off his reading glasses like he was ready to ream into me (god I _love_ that Professor look). He has a rule about interrupting him when he’s reading. I’m just not very good at following it. Though now, I’ve found that rule is a bit more flexible when there are _rewards_ involved.

“Would you want to grab food from _The Turtle and the Hare_ with me?” I said again. And really, a smarter version of me might have clarified what I actually wanted. A smarter version of me might have said “As a date,” or something equally straightforward. But that smarter version of me does not exist.

“ _Sure,_ ” he said, more emphatically, and tugged the book out from under my finger.

“Well, you don’t _have_ to,” I muttered -- remember how I said this was the poor-planner version of me? Of course, ears like the wolf, he caught me. You’ve probably never seen those beautiful brown eyes angry, but _Godric_ is that spark stunning, terrifying, and a massive turn-on all in one.

He was about to get angry with me, I could see it. And when Re gets angry, at least about the small stuff, it’s not something you want to cross. His eyes get all sharp and bitter and the corner of his mouth twists down at the edge and his jaw. Godric. His _jaw_ is the softest part about him usually, dimpled at his lips and with that sweet chin (the perfect size for my thumb), always just brushed over with a hint of shadow that’s never scratchy. But when he’s properly mad? It becomes like chiseled marble, strict and angry and hard.

Some part of me reached out right before he could go fully sharp, put my fingers over the back of his hand. He looked at me then, and at my fingers on his hand, and back at me.

“Do you want to _go to_ The Turtle and the Hare _with me_?” I said again, soft this time. And Re, brilliant, logical, careful Re. He _got it_ that time. Grinned at me something stupid and grabbed my hand, tugging me off-balance.

“Do you know how long I’ve been waiting for you to ask that?” he said into my mouth as he kissed me. I had no fucking idea. Still don’t know how long -- he won’t give me a proper answer when I ask. I still remember that kiss. The first kiss with somebody new is not usually so perfect. Right? You’ve gotta learn each other’s _style_ , figure out which of you is leading, whose lips go where. It’s a little awkward. But with Re?

That first kiss was like our bodies were made as one and split into two. He tasted like oranges and stale, oversteeped tea (which is _always_ the case, even if he hasn’t had an orange in a month and even if it’s nine at night and he hasn’t had tea since the afternoon). I could probably reminisce about that kiss for ages, but I don’t think I remember most of the specifics. He put a hand in my hair and _tugged_ and it’s all a bit blurry and heady after that, I think I was so blind with wanting him.

And from there, what can I say? He crooks a finger from across the room and I’m there at his side, gagging for it before I can even blink. He says my name in that _way_ that only I get to hear and I’m ready to ditch the pub and James and Lily and get down on my hands and knees for him. Godric forbid he actually _tells_ me to do something, I swear I’m at half-mast before the words are even fully out of his dirty mouth.

You wouldn’t think he’s got a dirty mouth, I know it. You look at him and think he’s all buttoned up librarian, too prudish to think anything smuttier than a dog-eared page. But dear _god_ can he fold me over in a dozen different ways.

Like today. It was two in the afternoon and I was minding myself in the kitchen, tinkering with the broken record player. It had never worked right since we sort of, er. Let’s say we stumbled into it, right? Certainly there’s not a spot where both of my hands were braced against the wooden sides of it and I was cursing to the beat of _Kashmir_ and I’m pretty sure what actually broke it was my hand smacking down over the top of it when I came.

I digress. Unfortunately, that happens a lot when I try to fix this thing. I distract myself by revisiting that night (and subsequent morning). Or Re comes over, catches me puzzling over this piece of it or that, and decides that I need my own reminder of it and starts it off by sinking to his knees. I’m supposed to keep working when he does that. How the fuck am I meant to give a shit about a screw charm when Remus puts his tongue against the head of my cock? When he slides his tongue into the slit and looks up at me as if there’s not a string of liquid connecting his lips to my cock, how am I meant to think anything other than _holy-fuck_ on repeat?

It was really all downhill from there. We started messing around and pretty much never stopped. Did you know Re is insanely touchy? Like, it’s nuts. Once I started letting him hold my hand, there was no going back. I swear we’re never further than a meter from each other, his fingers dancing over the back of my neck, knotting in my hair, stroking over the back of my hand. Or his knee will be knocking against mine, his toes tucked up under my pant leg, his fingers sliding beneath my waistband.

I get a bit lost in thought sometimes, about it all. But I’m meant to be telling a story, all proper-like, and I’m meant to be going on about that day on the bike on the A39.

I was driving down the road, cruising straight at high speeds with not another soul in sight, the best way to do it. And Re was plastered over my back, one hand tucked under the bottom of my sweatshirt. It was one of his, big and black and nicked from his dresser the night before and it still smelled like him, warm and rustic and a little bit like cardamom. He was all around me like that, just the way I like it, skin of my skin, body of my body, even with the wind ripping through us.

We almost ran straight off the road, though. ‘Cause Re thought it would be a grand idea to slide two fingers of his left hand into the _artful_ rip in my jeans, right at the upper thigh. Those two fingers, two _little fingers_ pressed into my skin, slid deeper into the slit and I nearly swerved right then and there. Except then his right hand tightened over my hip, holding me in place against him. And I could feel how hard he already was, pressed right up against me so close. I could feel his breath on my neck even in the whistling wind.

“Don’t stop,” he said, right in my ear. I whined (or maybe it was the bike) and arched back into him, but his firm hand held me in place. “Keep driving,” he said again, fingers digging into my hip.

And really, I ought to have pulled over right then and there, but as I’ve said. Smart Sirius is rarely about when Remus’ hands are on me. His fingers on my hip trawled upwards, under my sweatshirt, till he could feel over my chest where it heaved as I gulped fresh air, trying to keep my head from swimming with how overcome I was. _Eyes on the road_. There were still no other cars in sight, but trees everywhere, and I’d slowed down considerably. But the fingers in the rip in my trousers were pressing in, surely tearing the fabric up worse than it already was (not that I fucking minded, _Christ)_.

His lips were back on my neck, biting - hard, the way I like it, hard enough to leave a mark, teeth and tongue tracing over the place where my neck meets my shoulder. I felt like I was sinking into him, my thighs shaking over the bow of the motorcycle, my hands sweaty where they gripped the handlebars like they were my only tether. Between his hands all over me and his mouth at my neck and his body pressed against mine and the vibrations of the bike beneath us, I thought I might just come right then and there. And he hadn’t even touched my cock yet.

By the gods, I kept my strength for another mile before I was yanking us off the first exit and into the grass. We tore up the turf as I drove, Remus holding me tight to him, not giving me even a second’s respite. I was so hard I thought I might actually pass out before I could stop, but somehow, _somehow_ , I made it. I kicked down the stand and put my feet on the ground.

Looking back, it was an incredibly romantic place, with tall grass blocking the view and the smell of the midsummer sun beating down. I turned on the motorcycle so that I could face him, rolling our bodies together at a new angle. At the time, I couldn’t see anything but Remus, his hair shaggy-long and lit like that wheat beside us in the brilliant sun. And my hands were on him, dragging him to my lips, pulling those blistering hands from their chokehold on my hips, on my thigh, drawing them to me.

Look, we were just barely out of our teenage years (though I swore up and down I was a million years old already) but I’m not sure I’d even have that excuse. It was so hot that we both pulled our shirts off, pressing our chests together even as they grew hotter in the sun and in our closeness. He kissed me and I thought I was falling - in love, over him, off the bike, into a chasm - I thought I was being consumed. He took me apart, pressing lips over my lips, over my throat, over my collarbone, over my chest, and down, as if each segment of me was worth tasting.

Though I could feel the hard of the bike digging into my back, my entire senses were narrowed to the feeling of his lips on my body. Though I could feel the sun burning, it felt small in comparison to his gaze. Though I could hear the grass shifting, all that mattered was his voice, saying my name in a litany again and again as he grinded his hips down against mine, too rough between our pairs of jeans.

I came hard, arching into him, my whole body peeling off the bike into the soft presses of his fingers along my ribs. I reached back, holding onto the handlebars as I let myself come shouting his name, as if the name itself was my orgasm.

I knew that he came too, soon afterwards, though my mind was more light and overwhelmed for actual linear thinking. I knew he continued to grind against me, drawing our hips together, because I knew that it was almost too much for me, the inside of my jeans against my still-leaking cock.

His hands ended up back on my hips, pressed there so gently this time. As if I were an animal in need of care. Perhaps I was. I felt out of my fucking mind with it, as though the orgasm had taken any semblance of conscious thought straight from my head.

Somehow, he got us onto the grass.I undid my trouser button,cleaned myself up and sat there, just letting the sun bake my skin. And it was him and me, just like that, hair touching, hands sliding over each other.

Re had brought a bag with him, and somewhere in that haze he passed me a butterbeer and clinked his against mine. I started feeling more human again (less like the raw edge of a nerve, every bit of my skin thrumming with every tiny sensation) somewhere about halfway into it.

“I know we’re not talking about it,” he said, quietly.

“We’re not, that’s right,” I interrupted quickly, taking too long a sip of my drink. “It’s a beautiful day. That’s what matters.”

“I want to…” he paused, choosing his words, “To say it anyway. If that’s alright.”

I looked away. At the grass. At the bike. At the sun, blinding my vision.

He kept speaking, not waiting for my yes. “Whatever happens, baby. I mean that. _Whatever_ happens. I’ll be at your side.”

I swallowed at that. _Gods_ but he could be like that sometimes, all vague words and commitments.

“I don’t care what they throw at us. I’ll come back home. It’ll be you and me even if we’re the last two men standing at the end of all of this. I swear it,” and he was so fucking earnest. He cleared his throat. “I know with Dorcas gone, it feels real. And empty. And I think that those things are okay to feel,” he said, looking at his hands. “It’s hard to be hopeful, to--” he stuttered, pausing again to choose carefully. “To think about a future. But I-- Sirius, I _want_ that with you. Whatever this war and this world may bring us, with all of my heart.” And he was looking at me with those wide eyes, that _sincerity_ that he always managed to have.

I don’t remember my exact words in response. I hope I said something equally as romantic. I think it’s more likely that suave-Sirius was out of town, and I only stuttered something bumbling in assent.

He kissed me then, tasting like butterbeer and oranges and the June sun, and I would swear the world just held its breath for us. There was no war, no noise. Just the wind ruffling through his scruffy hair, and his hands on my hips, and his lips on my nose. Just the two of us.

**Author's Note:**

> Please don’t fuck and drive a motorcycle. I do not endorse this. These two are idiots.


End file.
